Kent is a beautiful county. Some of our residents and visitors do not deserve such beauty. Like most counties, Kent is plagued with litter on its roadsides. Well done to the cleaning up department of KCC as much of the rubbish dumped, thrown and deposited in the winter months has been cleared away but now a new invasion of summer ‘chuckers’ have appeared. What a sad mentality man doth have. Throw rubbish out of the window and expect others to pick it up. My brother blames the dustbin lorries allowing rubbish to blow as they drive up the highways. Perhaps a small degree of waste escapes that way but authorities would have clamped down on their employees long ago. No, it is the sheer, lazy cussedness of drivers and passengers in cars, vans and lorries. I saw an empty sandwich packet ‘missiled’ from the nearside window of a white flat-back van recently. Should l toot vigorously? Do l take the van’s number? Will l gesticulate firmly at the next halt? Whimpishly, l did nothing and the lout lived to ‘throw’ another day.
An enterprising councillor in East Kent has recommended that all ‘drive-in’ food stores should stamp the number plate of the car onto the package on purchase; another in Maidstone suggests ‘reward’ machines at service stations where vouchers can be claimed when placing empties, plastic bottles and coffee cups. The KCC ‘Drive Down Litter Campaign’ is considering giant funnel bins for lorry drivers. Perish the day that they should have to climb out of their cabs to dispose of litter! 200,000 bags were collected off UK motorways last year. That’s near to 500 bags a day. It’s not just unsightly but harmful to wildlife, a reason for drain blockages and dangerous to collect. It was suggested that those on Probation work should be responsible for cleaning up the rubbish. Health and Safety soon put a stop to that. The offenders may have shown boldness and audacity in their misdemeanours but the roads are a ‘tad’ too dangerous for them!
Rural fly tipping is another nightmare in beautiful Kent. Large piles of waste, disused appliances, unwanted beds, household and building materials line our lovely lanes. Fly tipping cost the county approximately £1.8 million last year and that does not include the work done by farmers who are deemed responsible for the removal of all waste from their land.
Four warrants were executed by Kent Police resulting in six recent arrests. Organised gangs are involved and the NFU, Neighbourhood Watch and local authorities are helping the Police track down these antisocial folk.
As this is a property magazine, l need to touch on the subject. The inheritance of farm land is regularly discussed especially when the next generation show no interest but their children may well do so. The business is precarious but its way of life is envied by others and the finality of a family farm sale is a tough call. We are entering this area of perhaps selling, perhaps letting, perhaps approaching distant relatives in the farming business to help out and to see who might emerge as a suitable owner. Interesting times.
As it is the time for Tennis, can anyone explain to me why a server should be allowed a second chance when serving. There is no second chance when that putt misses the hole; no second chance for the penalty taker when he misses, no reprieve for the batsman clean bowled so why should a tennis player have the luxury of another go when his first service crashes into the net or sails into the out of bounds. Perhaps Wimbledon should experiment with the one serve policy. Certainly it would favour the best and the boldest, it would speed up the matches and cut by half the pointless bouncing of balls between each service. Just a thought! I tried it with tennis friends and not surprisingly received no support for my speed up plan……not even in beautiful Kent.
